Next step will be how team handles some adversity

TORONTO — Warm up the weather, open the roof, give away made-in-China replica jerseys, and they will come.

Oh yes, and keep offering up this brand of baseball. Maybe then the fans, so skeptical a month ago, will keep coming out to watch the Toronto Blue Jays.

With a sun-soaked sellout crowd of 45,277 on hand at the Rogers Centre, the Blue Jays served up a game that had a little of everything, including one of Edwin Encarnacion’s towering home runs, a sharp seven innings of pitching by J.A. Happ, some slick baserunning by Jose Reyes, a critical catch against the wall by Melky Cabrera and a disputed play that triggered the manager’s ejection and a rousing off-colour chorus from the crowd.

And a taut win for the home side too, by a 3-1 score over the Oakland A’s, good for a series sweep and a six-game winning streak. The Blue Jays are 17-7 in May and lead the American League East by two games.

Toronto won three close games against the team that arrived Friday with the league’s best record by using speed — a lot of it by Reyes on the bases — one homer per game, deep starts, a stingy bullpen and crisp defence. It is a departure from Toronto’s one-dimensional, homer-dependent teams of the past, and it shows that the disparate stars thrown together last year have finally started to jell, manager John Gibbons said.

“You can have all the talent in the world,” he said, “but you’ve still got to be a team.”

Entering the game, Jays’ attendance was down more than 136,000 for the comparable period in 2013. But the long-awaited arrival of nice weather, plus the May surge of a team everyone picked to finish last, might well boost the turnouts as the team settles in for a long homestand.

After Casey Janssen finished off a perfect ninth inning, the rollicking crowd stood, roared and slow-clapped the Blue Jays back to their dugout. It had been a long time since this venue had seen that.

The Jays’ record is 29-22. A year ago, it was 22-29.

“This year we got same players, same talent, and now we play like we were supposed to play a year ago,” said the jaunty Reyes, who singled, stole second and third and scored a critical late insurance run in the seventh on Bautista’s sacrifice fly.

And Happ, who is pitching more aggressively with his fastball while forging a productive bond with catcher Erik Kratz, says individual success is infectious.

“You just feed off each other,” he said. “Music’s better, the jokes are better, everything’s better when you’re winning.”

J.A. Happ of the Toronto Blue Jays delivers a pitch in the fourth inning during MLB game action against the Oakland Athletics. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

Nonetheless, this team has much to prove. Its true mettle — and quality of talent — will be revealed when it tries to battle back after losing three or four in a row as a rival team gets hot. For now, Gibbons prefers an obvious mantra: “Ride it.”

The Jays handed out replica Bautista and Encarnacion jerseys to the first 20,000 through the gates, and their featured sluggers figured prominently in the outcome. So did fellow Dominicans Reyes and Cabrera, who, along with Bautista and Encarnacion, wore splashes of pink in honour of Mother’s Day back home.

Encarnacion extended his madcap May surge in the fourth inning with his 12th homer of the month and Bautista drove in two runs with a single and sac-fly.

Reyes stole three bases and Cabrera brought the crowd to its feet in the sixth when he leaped against the left-field wall to make an inning-ending catch of Alberto Callaspo’s drive with a runner on second.

Happ worked seven innings for the first time this year, allowing four hits and no runs. He walked three and struck out a season-high seven.

So the fans had much to cheer about, and, after a weird play in the fifth, an opportunity to boo the new replay technology.

J.A. Happ of the Toronto Blue Jays delivers a pitch in the first inning during MLB game action against the Oakland Athletics. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

With Bautista on first, Encarnacion hit a pop-up behind second base that fell among three A’s defenders. Bautista had to hesitate to see if the ball would be caught. When it dropped, he raced to second and was called out on a close play with the pitcher covering.

Gibbons lost his challenge and his subsequent argument with umpire Mark Carlson. The crowd responded, in stirring unison, with a chant that referenced bovine excrement.

Afterward, the manager said he noticed “a different feel” in spring training.

“I think we’ve really come together as a team,” he said. “I started to see that at the end of last year. One of the questions last year, when we brought in so many new guys, so many new faces into it, was how to try to form a team out of it. That doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes it never happens.”

And sometimes it takes a year. At the moment, the Jays are making it fun as their fans wait to see if it lasts.

Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays hits an RBI sacrifice fly in the seventh inning during MLB game action against the Oakland Athletics. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

thletics on Sunday showed just how well that combination can work.

Edwin Encarnacion provided the power with his 14th homer of the season, Jose Reyes provided the speed by equalling a career best for a game with three stolen bases and left-hander J.A. Happ provided the pitching with seven runless innings.

Put it all together, and you get a team that’s on a season-best six-game winning streak and has won 16 of its past 21 games.

“I don’t know if you ever see it coming,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “What it really comes down to is we’re just playing good baseball. The starting pitching has been really good, our offence has been alive, the bullpen has been solid.”

The Blue Jays (29-22) swept the three-game series with the Athletics (30-20) who lead the AL West despite losing their past four games.

“Our three pitchers and their three pitchers were very good,” Gibbons said. “And in those tight ball games, some clutch hitting and some great base running made the difference in most of those games. So ride it, ride it.”

Manager John Gibbons of the Toronto Blue Jays is ejected in the fifth inning by home plate umpire Mark Carlson as first base umpire Ted Barrett explains the call after a review during MLB game action against the Oakland Athletics. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

It was Toronto’s second straight sweep after taking three games from the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Happ (4-1) allowed four hits and three walks while striking out seven in his longest outing of the season.

“He’s filling up the strike zone,” Gibbons said. “He’s really doing a nice job of using his fastball on both sides of the plate. He’s locked in right now. (Catcher Erik) Kratz has done a great job with him.”

Dustin McGowan replaced Happ in the eighth and allowed Josh Donaldson’s 11th homer of the season. Casey Janssen pitched the ninth inning to earn his seventh save in as many attempts this season.

“Definitely wanted to pitch off the fastball today and Kratz did a great job behind the plate,” Happ said. “We were on the same page and tried to use that.

“First and foremost it was about me throwing the ball where I’m supposed to throw it, and then pitching off the fastball and using everything. I thought today we did a good job establishing the fastball.”

Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher J.A. Happ works against the Oakland Athletics. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette)

A’s left-hander Drew Pomeranz (4-2) allowed five hits, four walks and two runs in four-plus innings.

“I think I maybe tried to locate a little too much instead of going right at guys and ended up walking too many people and being in bad counts a lot,” Pomeranz said. “I wasn’t attacking guys like I should have.”

The Blue Jays did not have a hit until Encarnacion homered to left on a 2-2 fastball with one out in the fourth. It was the 14th of the year and the 12th of the month, tying him with Jose Bautista for the team record for homers in May. The run also snapped a string of 18 consecutive runless innings for Pomeranz.

Toronto went on to load the bases in the inning on singles by Brett Lawrie and Dioner Navarro and a walk by Steve Tolleson, but Kratz grounded into a double play to end the inning.

The Blue Jays loaded the bases in the fifth on a single to centre by Kevin Pillar, an infield hit by Reyes and a walk to Melky Cabrera. Bautista singled off right-hander Jim Johnson to score one run, but Reyes was thrown out at home by left-fielder Yoenis Cespedes.

Encarnacion’s pop to centre field dropped in but Bautista was forced at second on centre-fielder Craig Gentry’s throw to Johnson covering second base. Gibbons immediately challenged but the review upheld the call. Unconvinced, Gibbons argued and was ejected for the first time this season.

“I was looking up at that (score) board and it looked pretty obvious to me,” Gibbons said. “Their video probably isn’t as big as that board maybe. I guess it’s a good system but it’s not a perfect system. That was big right there. We were sitting pretty good with a chance to blow the game open if he’s safe. The out call changes the whole complexion a I thought they got it wrong out there.”

Bautista’s sacrifice fly against right-hander Luke Gregerson in the seventh gave Toronto a 3-0 lead, scoring Reyes who opened the inning with a single and stole second and third. The three steals in a game equalled a career best for Reyes who has done it eight times. The previous time was Sept. 25, 2008, against the Chicago Cubs when he was with the New York Mets.

“He can really generate his own runs when he gets in scoring position,” Gibbons said. “Jose is feeling good right now. … He’s exciting, that’s one of the reasons they brought him over here.”

The Athletics completed a nine-game trip at 5-4 starting with five wins against the Cleveland Indians and the Tampa Bay Rays.

“You go through these periods,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “You’ve just got to fight your way through it.

“You’re not always going to score seven, eight runs a game and right now we’re going through a drought.”

NOTES: The last time the Blue Jays were alone in first place later than May 24 was July 6, 2000. aRight-hander R.A. Dickey lowered his earned-run average to 3.95 with his 8 1/3-inning outing in Saturday’s win to drop his ERA below 4.00 for the first time in his Blue Jays career. a The Blue Jays open a three-game series at Rogers Centre against the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday with right-hander Drew Hutchison (3-3, 3.45 ERA) facing Ottawa left-hander Erik Bedard (2-2. 2.63 ERA). aAttendance was 45,277, the fourth sellout of the season.